All Hearts are Broken
by Phuchka
Summary: Sherlock Holmes also knows how to burn the heart out of a man. Just cheat on him.
1. Chapter 1

John had tolerated as much of the bloody conference as he could. Two weeks was really too much! It was cold, it was dull, the lectures were tedious and…he realized with a laugh that he was sounding like Sherlock. He missed him like crazy. He had been texting him several times a day but that was still not enough. He wanted to see those beautiful eyes light up with pleasure, he wanted to run his hand through the unruly curls and trace a finger down those high cheekbones… He quickly made up his mind. He was going to pack and take the next flight out. He had put up with the conference for more than a week and he didn't think that missing a few days would make a whole lot of difference. It was time to head back to 221B Baker Street. And to Sherlock.

Sometimes it was still hard to believe that he and Sherlock were together. Partners in every sense of the word. That night at the swimming pool had really changed things for them. He almost thanked Moriarty for strapping a bomb onto him. When they had returned home that night, high on adrenaline and with their feelings so close to the surface, the line between friendship and love had blurred as easily as if it had never been there. It was almost eight months now since that day. He still grew angry with Sherlock, frustrated with his irascible nature, his refusal to feed his body, his multiple nicotine patches and his black humours. But he marveled each day that this mad, irritating man had chosen to be with him. He was still impressed by his genius at crime scenes and his intellectual prowess. He still found it hard to say no to anything those blue eyes might ask of him. He couldn't help but want to cuddle the petulant child-man and soothe the turmoil in that gigantic mind.

He smiled now as he boarded the flight thinking of the surprise on Sherlock's face when he saw him. He sent him a text just to throw him off track for a while.

'Getting into workshop. We have been promised 'practical exercises' so might have to switch off phone for a bit. Miss you. JW'

'Fine. Miss you too. SH'

The response arrived almost immediately as if Sherlock had already been texting him. John could almost imagine him rolling his eyes.

It was very late when the taxi rolled up to 221B and John saw that the lights in the sitting room were switched off. He picked up his small suitcase and quietly let himself in. He had checked his phone when he landed in Heathrow and had received only one message. It was Sherlock of course.

'Solved the case of the Ambassador's children. Tired. SH'

This gave him reasonable confidence that Sherlock was likely to be home. Immediately after a difficult case, his ignored and abused body would start to assert itself and he would simply crash out. John just wished he had been around to help out with the case. Moriarty had also pulled the stunt with the Crown Jewels, the Bank of England and Pentonville prison a few months back and John did not feel comfortable leaving Sherlock alone. However, though Sherlock did look unusually tense for some days, they had not heard from the man in some time. The conference had been almost forced on him by Sarah at the surgery as a necessary condition for continuing there. Sometimes he just didn't understand what got into that woman. Sherlock had surprisingly urged him to go for it saying that he had a case that would keep him busy but refusing to go into details.

John climbed the stairs slowly taking care to avoid the creaking one. Still he was surprised Sherlock hadn't heard him yet. He entered the darkened sitting room and put down his case near the door. There was no sign of Sherlock. Sleeping in his bedroom then, John thought as he went in that direction and pushed open the door.

At first his mind couldn't make sense of the tableau in front of him. After a few moments, his brain puttered to life again though everything still seemed to happen in slow motion. The room was lit up only by the faint moonlight falling through the window. Sherlock was in bed naked. The duvet lay tangled somewhere between his waist and legs. Below him was Irene Adler. Also naked. Sherlock had been nuzzling her neck and Irene thrusting up at him, when John pushed open the door. At the sound, both Sherlock and Irene had looked around and there had been a moment when everyone seemed to freeze. Sherlock his face sweaty and pink, his hair messed up, and looking shocked to see him. Irene looking utterly debauched as usual, her eyes almost black, her mouth parted, the beginnings of a sneer beginning to form on her flushed face.

John's body moved apparently on its own volition because he couldn't remember telling it to back away to the sitting room and close the bedroom door. He stood uncertainly in the middle of the room trying to work out what had just happened. Sherlock was in bed with Irene Adler. Irene Adler who was supposedly dead. Sherlock, his partner, his love, the man for whom he would give up his life… was in bed with Irene Adler. Who should have been dead but apparently wasn't. Sherlock Holmes, the great genius, the high functioning sociopath, the fucking virgin was cheating on him!

"John", Sherlock began, as he came into the room tying up his robe around him. John turned around and swung a punch. Before Sherlock could recover from that, he caught him by the lapels and roughly pushed him up against the wall. John's mind seemed to have gone from disbelieving shock to seething fury.

"What is going on Sherlock?!" he yelled in the man's face. "What are you doing with her? WHAT?! WHY?! WHY?!" John twisted his body pinning Sherlock's throat under his forearm. "I thought she was dead!" he bit out as Sherlock struggled under him. "I thought… I thought…" John's voice broke and his face crumpled. He let go of Sherlock staggering away from him. "I thought you loved me Sherlock", he whispered his words bringing the sting of tears to his eyes.

"I'm sorry John", Sherlock rasped out and put up a hand to staunch the bleeding from his nose. His face was a smooth mask. "I'm sorry you had to find out like this. I knew all along that Irene was alive. I saved her."

John looked at him disbelievingly and sat down heavily on the sofa. "How long has this been going on?"

"Not very long", Sherlock said as if he was talking about one of his experiments as he sat in the armchair opposite him. "Two months, ten days. After she came back to London. I wasn't sure how to tell you. You get so sentimental about things."

"You…you machine! I can't believe you! I just can't!" John looked at his face again as though searching for a clue, looking for a crack in that perfect mask. He felt like he was looking at a stranger. As if the last eight months had only happened in his head.

"Did you ever love me? All that you said, did you mean any of them? Was that all an act? Or is this?" A flash of something crossed Sherlock's face. John pleaded, his eyes red with unshed tears, "It's an act isn't it? It can't be real. God, it can't be real. How can you be so cruel? Do you understand that you are cheating on me? Tell me this is some elaborate prank of yours!" John put his head in his hands.

"Well hello, Doctor Watson", came a cool voice from the door. Irene sauntered in wearing only a shirt. Sherlock's purple shirt, a part of John's mind registered painfully. "I am so sorry. We have been very naughty, haven't we Sherlock?" she said with a taunting look aimed at him.

She went to the fridge and took out a bag of frozen peas as she continued talking. "I always said you both were a couple. But then, you did insist that I might be special to Sherlock. Now look at us both." She perched on the armrest of Sherlock's chair and rubbing his back, placed the cold bag to his nose.

John's temper had been bubbling again ever since Irene strolled into the room. "You shut up! Just shut up!" he said standing up his body burning with the need to hurt her.

"John, please calm down. This doesn't have to change anything", Sherlock said. "We can continue just like before. You know you need me and I enjoy having you around."

John looked at them sitting so cozily in the chair. They looked beautiful together, almost regal, as they sat there so insolently, so oblivious to his distress. John's head was spinning.

"I don't know what you are suggesting and I don't care. I loved you Sherlock Holmes but clearly you are incapable of feeling anything! I hope I never see you again you bastard!" John said as he picked up his suitcase and rushed out before his tears spilled over.

Sherlock did not try to stop him.


	2. Chapter 2

John fiddled around with the cutlery as he waited for Mary to arrive at the restaurant. He patted his trouser pocket yet again checking that the box carrying the ring was still there. He didn't know why he felt so fidgety. He was a grown man, a doctor, a soldier, he had been in a bloody war! He could propose to a woman for Christ's sake! And he loved Mary. He loved her, he repeated to himself mechanically. He loved her, he loved her. It would be fine.

He looked up as a woman entered the restaurant. It wasn't Mary. But the woman was wearing a shocking pink coat over a shocking pink dress. It was the same shade of pink as the one he had seen on a body once… No, no, he shook his head and ran a hand over his moustache. He did not want to think about that life, he did not want to think about the thrill of running through darkened streets and firing a perfect shot through glass windows. He did not want to think about Sherlock Holmes.

But it was too late now. At the thought of his name, John's mind went back in time to that awful night almost two years back. He thought about how he had stumbled brokenly through the streets before it occurred to him that it was freezing and he ought to find a hotel. He had gone back for the rest of his things when he knew Sherlock wouldn't be there. He bid a short farewell to Mrs. Hudson who stood teary eyed and perplexed at the turn of events. John could not bear to tell her what had happened or listen to her consolations.

For the next few months, John Watson was like a ghost. He avoided people and refused to meet Lestrade or Molly. He didn't answer Mike's calls and the only way Harry found out was because she landed up outside his hotel drunk and created a scene till he let her inside. When he told Harry about what had happened and dissuaded her from going to Sherlock to land a few punches of her own, she took him away to stay with her for a few days. He gave up his job at the surgery wanting to move as far from his former life as possible.

He was a shell of his former self in those days. Sherlock Holmes had taken over his mind, body and soul. He had never met anyone like him and didn't think he ever would. He had been in love with him for some time before they revealed their true feelings for each other. John had never expected that to happen what with his so-far-heterosexual self unable to take the leap and Sherlock's apparent asexuality. But leaped he had. Straight into Sherlock's dangerous arms. Welcoming a relationship that was completely uncharted territory. And for a long while he had been so blissfully happy he could not believe it some mornings. Sherlock's betrayal had therefore come as a big shock. John thought he was the only one Sherlock had allowed to see his human side, that he was special. How could that extraordinary relationship have had such a sordid, commonplace end?

When he thought about how Sherlock had dissembled, how long he must have been pretending with him while he slept with Irene, he could barely breathe in grief and anger. He couldn't work out if Sherlock had always been acting with him, telling him things he thought John wanted to hear. Or if there had been a time when those things were true but when he had got bored of him, John had ceased to matter entirely. Well, he had bothered to continue pretending everything was okay for two months after he started with Irene so maybe he had felt something real. John's mind went around in circles trying to analyze what had happened to his life.

He felt devastated and some nights his tears just wouldn't stop. His nightmares were back and so was his limp. He went back to his therapist not because he thought she could help but because he needed someplace where he could pour his feelings out. Somebody who would just sit quietly and listen to him as he articulated just how meaningless his life felt. Sometimes he sat in his chair staring at his phone and reading his old texts which he couldn't bring himself to delete. Sherlock never called, never texted. He seemed to have stopped caring about him entirely. John's therapist told him he needed more closure and there were several times John thought about contacting Sherlock for one last talk. But he never did. He thought of Sherlock's cold face as he sat in the chair with Irene draped over him. He didn't know what he would do if he had to face him again.

He heard little about him in the coming months. Sherlock appeared to be keeping a very low profile indeed. And John was just fine with that. He made sure to avoid their regular haunts and never bumped into him either. Sometimes, he thought he saw out of the corner of his eye a long coat billowing in the wind or the flash of a bright blue scarf or a curly mop of hair in the crowd. But it was probably all his imagination. There was never anyone there as John picked up the pieces of his life. He found a new job and a new flat. No flatmates. He grew a moustache. He was no longer that man who jumped across rooftops and didn't raise an eyebrow at thumbs in the fridge. He just wanted now to get through the rest of his days in an utterly normal, utterly boring way. And then he met Mary Morstan.

Mary was a doctor at the clinic where he now worked. She was blonde and safe. She was nice. She couldn't read his mind or deduce people's life histories. His life which had been turned upside down ever since he realized he was in love with Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective, self proclaimed sociopath and a man, slowly began to right itself. Eventually he told Mary about him of course. She held him as he laid his head on her shoulder. They never spoke of Sherlock again.

And today he was going to propose to her. They had been together only a short while but John Watson had had enough of grieving. He was planning to reclaim his life and that plan included an understanding, loving wife and maybe children. This is what he had always planned. Before Sherlock Holmes had burst into his life with his upturned coat collars and his high cheekbones. The bastard. John shook his head again as if to clear it of the cobwebs and took a deep breath. Right then! Today was supposed to be a special day, a happy day. He was going to ask Mary to marry him and he felt sure she would agree. His therapist was pleased with his progress.

"John", a familiar baritone said close at hand. John looked up from the menu he had been perusing intently. Any reply he might have made died in his throat.

Sherlock Holmes, looking immaculate as always, loomed above him.


	3. Chapter 3

John finally found his voice. "What are you doing here?!" he choked out. It had been two years since he had last seen the man other than the occasional article in the papers. Sherlock looked even more painfully thin than before, if that was possible and there were faint shadows beneath those brilliant blue eyes. But what caused John's heart to give an agonizing lurch was the expression on Sherlock's face.

Sherlock looked unsure. Unsure and sad. And regretful. And miserable. And…and hopeful. He looked like all the things John had never thought to see on Sherlock's face. His face looked like a canvas on which a thousand emotions flitted across in quick succession, as open to his scrutiny as he had never been. "We need to talk John", he said sitting down in the chair opposite him.

"I… I don't want to talk to you. We have nothing to talk about! Now please just… just leave!" John said agitatedly struggling to keep his voice down.

"Please John! I need to apologize to you. And to explain…"

"There is nothing to explain Sherlock!" John bit out.

"Yes there is, John! What you saw that night, the things I said… it wasn't real. Please let me explain…" Sherlock said in an urgent undertone.

John couldn't believe this was happening. He felt like he was caught in some surreal drama. The waiter chose that moment to come over to their table with a candle, "More romantic for you and for your date", he smiled completely oblivious to the scene being played out.

"He's not my date!" John shouted. The waiter looked stunned and the other diners turned to look at him. John struggled out of his chair, his leg acting up again and gestured to Sherlock, "Outside. Now."

Once they had donned their coats and stood outside the restaurant, John said to Sherlock, "I have no wish to listen to your apologies Sherlock if that's what you are planning on. It's too late in the day. Now if you'll excuse me I'm waiting for a friend." He tried to turn away but Sherlock grabbed his arm.

"John, listen to me please. I know you are very angry with me. And you have every right to be! I have ensured that you hate me. But now that it is all over, I have to tell you why I did it."

"I don't want to know! I don't want to know!" John said panicking, his mind in a whirl thinking wildly of the ring in his pocket.

Sherlock grabbed his face in both his big hands and forced him to look into his eyes. "John! What you saw that day was NOT REAL. I was faking it because I wanted you to stay away from me."

John made a distressed movement and Sherlock shifted his hands down to grab his shoulders. "No, hear me out. Moriarty was threatening me John. He threatened to burn my heart out. And you are my heart John. YOU. He knew that, so I pretended to have lost interest in you and broke your heart so that you would leave me. I wanted to finish Moriarty once and for all and I could never do that if there was the slightest chance of you coming to any harm. I knew you would never leave me alone if I told you and Moriarty would never miss an opportunity to attack you. I faced Moriarty shortly after the incident between us and he shot himself rather than admit defeat. I had to be sure however, so, for the past two years I have been tracking and taking down his criminal network all over the world. Yesterday, I nabbed the last of them in New York."

Sherlock stopped and let go of John, looking unsure of how to proceed. He said tightly, "You don't know how much I've missed you John! How much it hurt me to do that to you! Please forgive me."

John stepped back and punched Sherlock in the face.

"You utter bastard! Why should I believe a word of what you are saying?" he shouted angrily when Sherlock staggered upright, the blood flowing from his nose. "I thought Irene Adler was dead! But you saved her! You didn't tell me about that! When I saw you in bed with her…!"

"Irene was just helping me out because I saved her life John! And I saved her life because she knew a lot of secrets about Moriarty than Mycroft could get out of her. Not because I cared for her. I have never cared for her. I didn't tell you because I knew you didn't like her and would immediately jump to the wrong conclusion! And…and I can prove that what I am saying is the truth. Mycroft helped me out and I told Lestrade to keep any eye on you but you shut him out. And I asked Sarah to send you to that conference. I was tracking your phone. I knew you were coming home. I had to be brutal but it was the only way you would stay away from me. I made you hate me John because… because I thought it was better that you live and hate me than die because you loved me. Please believe me."

"No, no Sherlock", John fumed. "I will not believe you! Do you know what a hell my life was after that night? Do you know what I went through? You are not allowed to walk back in here and act like nothing happened!"

"I am doing nothing of the sort John! And I know how you felt these past two years because I have been in the same hell!" Sherlock said his voice choking up and his eyes glistening with tears.

John stood there looking into those pleading blue eyes and began to feel his world tilting again.

Then someone called out to him and looking past Sherlock he saw Mary coming down the path, a worried look on her face.

"Please… just leave me alone Sherlock. I am with someone else now and I plan to marry her. I am too old and too tired to play your games anymore", he said sighing and rubbing his face.

Sherlock looked like he had been slapped. "Okay John. I suppose I deserve this. Just please know you are the only person whom… whom I have ever loved. And if I could take away your hurt, I would do that in an instant", he said looking at him as if trying to burn the memory into his mind palace. "Goodbye John", he whispered and walked quickly away into the darkness.

John turned away from him and towards Mary.

OoOoO

When John got back to his flat he sat down heavily on the bed. He took out the little box from his pocket and opened it to look at the ring he had been unable to give Mary. He had told her about Sherlock coming back instead. He had told her that he needed some time to sort out his feelings. She had agreed and ended their relationship with more dignity than he deserved.

He took his phone out of his pocket and scrolled till he came to Sherlock's number. He had not been able to delete it though he had deleted the messages after much persuasion by his therapist. He had no way of knowing if Sherlock still used that number. He weighed the phone in his hands thinking of Sherlock's face at the restaurant looking so haunted and broken, his eyes so full of longing. He sent a text.

'We need to talk. JW'

And even before he could quite process what he had just done, his phone pinged in reply.

**Several readers have enjoyed this story and I am really thankful for that. **

**However since I still get follows on this story, I would like to mention here that I have envisioned this only as a 3 part fic and want to leave the interpretation of the end to the imagination of the readers. **

**P.S. If you are a sucker for happy endings like me, then you'll know what happened! :)**


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